Our Story

TEAM

Mona Kuhn | Curator

PUBLIC ART, DISPLAYED IN A QUINTESSENTIAL LOS ANGELES MEDIUM.

The Billboard Creative is a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that takes unused and remnant billboards and turns them into public art. Open to all disciplines—if you can put your art on a digital file, we can put it on a billboard. Imagine the impact of original art, in large scale, viewed by tens of thousands of us on our daily commute. Public art, displayed in a quintessential Los Angeles medium.

TBC is an all-volunteer organization staffed by people passionate about art and the people who make it.

THE BILLBOARD CREATIVE offers periodic calls for art to be submitted with the very minimal cost of $26 for the 1st image and $6 for each additional image. Selected works will be displayed on billboards along with the artists' names. Our site will share images of the selected works, linking back to artists' websites.

WHY:

THE BILLBOARD CREATIVE is the antidote to the inbox-choking, often empty and expensive pitches from art expos and pay-for-play venues. We've participated in many fee-based programs and competitions. Some of them were great; some less so. (Look up Alan Bamberger’s article in artbusiness.com on whether or not art competitions will help your career.) But the bottom line is that many competitions are more about making money than making art. We understand this - everyone has to make a living, but it inspired us to create a program that actually is all about the art.

Our goal is to get new, interesting, innovative artwork of all mediums in front of people, lots of people, and for considerably less cost to the artist.

We are an all-volunteer organization and that’s reflected in our operating budget. In many ways, this project is crowd-funded public art. And, it’s in a venue that you can be sure is going to be seen by lots and lots of people.

HERE'S HOW WE DO IT:

THE BILLBOARD CREATIVE partners with a company that rents unsold outdoor ad space. We select boards from their inventory to stage month-long outdoor art shows on the rented billboards. We publish a map to each show and distribute it to our subscribers. We also distribute it to the press and promote it through Social Media.

Billboard rentals are funded by submission fees. A guest curator determines the work from each submission period that will be placed on boards throughout the Los Angeles area.

The number of billboards to be included from each call will vary depending on the number of submissions received, the availability of viable and current market prices for available billboards. By viable we mean those that exist in well-traveled (car and foot traffic) locations. And, billboard availability is fairly random and seasonal with late winter and early spring months offering the best in availability. One example of “location viability” is the billboard pictured on our HOME page, located at the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax, a block from LACMA.

All billboards will include the artist’s name. Our website will have images of the selected work, the artist’s name and a link to their website. It’s a very simple, fluid, and straightforward process.

WHAT SUBMISSION FEES PAY FOR:

THE BILLBOARD CREATIVE is run BY artists and art enthusiasts FOR artists and art enthusiasts. We created TBC as a submission-based show that actually benefits the artist and their stakeholders while expanding the audience for art. TBC operates with complete transparency as a non-profit 501c3. The contributing organizers are all volunteers.